


Corporeality

by Owlship



Category: Bumblebee (2018), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: (not that charlie's is any better), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Humanformers, Kinda, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Transformation, bumblebee is having a Very Confusing day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 18:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18168359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: Instead of the giant robot that was there moments ago, there's again an ordinary yellow punch buggy sitting in the garage.With a very confused-looking guy in the driver's seat.





	Corporeality

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/183505970736/you-know-theres-this-really-cool-stop-motion)!
> 
> Some lines taken directly from the movie. :)

"What the hell is _that_?" her Mom says, pushing past Charlie to get into the garage.

Charlie panics, she has no explanation for the giant robot thing that minutes ago had been her car.

"You brought a date home? This late?" her mother continues before Charlie has a chance to come up with some sort of excuse.

"Date?" she says, and turns around. Instead of a giant robot, there's again an ordinary yellow punch buggy sitting in the garage.

With a very confused-looking guy in the driver's seat.

"That, uh," Charlie says, casting around for some explanation. "That's just a friend. From work. I was bringing him home!"

The guy looks at her with wide eyes, and she turns to face her Mom again.

"Don't you mean _he_ was bring _you_ home?" her mother asks, but Charlie can see that she's relaxing.

"Well, uh, that's actually my car," Charlie says, and straightens her spine in what she hopes is a confident pose. "Uncle Hank gave it to me. We just stopped here for... uh..." Her mother raises an eyebrow. "To listen to my new Smiths tape! But I'll be dropping him off now so," Charlie babbles, "So I'd better get back on the road."

"Hank gave you a car?" her mother says, and then shakes her head. "You're going to bring that boy home and then we'll be talking about curfews, young lady."

"Right," Charlie says, "Yes. Of course."

Her mother waves at the boy in the car, and then says, "That thing really runs?"

"Yeah," Charlie says, "It really, really runs." She shoos her mother out the door, closing it gratefully behind her.

Then she's heading right for the car, yanking the passenger door open. The guy inside flinches and presses himself against the driver's door.

"Who the hell are you?" Charlie demands, "How did you get in here?" What did you see, she wants to ask.

The guy opens his mouth, but only a garbled rasp comes out, and his hand goes up to his throat.

She waits, but the guy doesn't talk. "Get out of there," she says, and reaches for his arm to tug him across the seats.

He flinches away, and his flailing limbs have her retreating from the car.

As soon as she's clear, the car starts to rattle and contort, and within seconds it's not a car anymore, it's the same giant robot thing from before.

"What the hell?" Charlie says, taking a few quick steps back.

The robot stares down at her in what she thinks is fear, and then becomes a car again. The guy is still in the driver's seat, apparently unharmed from this transformation.

"Okay," Charlie says, trying to make eye contact with the guy to figure out what the hell is going on.

But the car turns back into a robot, then a car, then finally a robot again before moving to cower in the corner of the garage behind her Dad's Corvette.

She's officially very confused at this point. The robot stares at her from a defensive crouch, arms crossed and glowing blue eyes looking terrified.

"Hi?" Charlie says, taking a tentative step closer.

The robot makes a buzzing noise, sort of like an angry bee, and shrinks away a little more.

"It's okay," she says, and holds her hands out wide and open in what she hopes really is the universal sign for 'I mean you no harm'. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

The robot watches her warily, and she takes another step closer. "See?" she says, trying to keep her voice low and soothing. "It's okay."

The robot lets her get two more steps closer before it starts moving, and it's her turn to stand completely still. But it only uncurls itself enough to press its face against her hand, eyes sliding shut behind metal eyelids.

"Can you understand me?" Charlie asks, staring in wonder at the robot. It's massive and could easily do her serious damage, but instead, it seems to be afraid of _her_.

The robot's eyes open again, a strange bright glow with no source she can see, and it nods.

"What _are_ you?" she says, bringing up her other hand to feel its face, needing to reassure herself that it's real and not some crazy dream she's having. "What happened to that guy?" she asks, suddenly looking at its chest. There might be enough room in there for a person to fit, maybe?

The robot backs away again, and she lets her hands drop. It brings up its own hands and looks at them, then looks at her. Is she imagining things or does it also look confused?

It starts to stand up and Charlie hastily backs away, giving it room.

The robot moves back to the center of the garage, then transforms into a car again. The guy is still there.

"Hey," Charlie says, "Are you okay?"

The guy looks at her and then slowly, he gets out of the car. He opens his mouth, but only a rasping noise comes out, and he sets his hands on the hood of the Beetle, hunching over.

"Woah," she says, and moves to his side, hands hovering in case he needs support. "Alright there?"

He looks at her, blinking slowly. His eyes are the same shade of blue as the robot's, she realizes, albeit his aren't glowing.

He points to his chest, and then to the car.

Charlie frowns. "That's your car?" she guesses. Maybe he was hiding in the trunk when she drove home, and that's why she didn't notice him.

He shakes his head, and repeats the pointing gesture.

She thinks about what she saw, a car turning into a robot, and hazards a guess of, "The car is some kind of armor for you? Like those robot shows?"

The guy shakes his head again, looking forlorn, and then throws his hands out in a gesture of confusion and frustration.

"Okay, okay," Charlie says, "Calm down."

He opens the car door and gets back in, and within seconds there's a giant robot again standing there in her garage.

It- he?- looks sad, the antenna-like things on his head drooping, eyes somehow frowning even though there's no mouth and no eyebrows.

"You can't speak," she says, and the robot focuses on her again.

He shakes his head, a sad sort of whir emanating from somewhere inside of its body.

"And that person, that's... Also you?"

The robot tilts its head a little, finally shrugging huge metal shoulders.

"Woah," Charlie says. This makes _no_ sense at all, but she can't deny what's in front of her own eyes.

He buzzes a little, quietly, then points a finger at her.

"My shirt?" she asks, glancing down. "You a metal fan?" The robot shakes his head slightly and reemphasizes his pointing gesture.

"Oh," she says as the realization hits. "Me." She introduces herself, and then asks, "Do you have a name?"

The robot looks sad again, turning his face away.

"You don't have one, or you don't remember?" Charlie says. Now that she's over her surprise the robot doesn't seem half so scary as it had at first- it's bright yellow, for one thing, and seems plainly terrified. It must have had some awful things happen to it to end up in her uncle's salvage yard, she thinks.

There's no answer except for more sad whirring, and she makes up her mind. "You sound like a Bumblebee," she says. "I'm going to call you that from now on. Bumblebee."

The robot looks up at her again, and she thinks it doesn't look quite as sad any more.

"Matches your outfit, too," she says with a smile, and is rewarded with the robot- with _Bumblebee_ \- softening his gaze, seemingly accepting the new name.

There's a knock on the garage door, and Charlie's eyes go wide.

"Quick, turn back into a car!" she hisses, moving to intercept whoever is at the door before they yank it open.

"I haven't seen your car leave, Charlie," her mother calls through the thankfully still-closed door. "You have two minutes to escort your friend out or I'm going to read you some really _exciting_ pamphlets I have from the hospital on STI's."

"Oh my god, Mom," Charlie groans. "We're leaving!" She glances over her shoulder; Bumblebee is a car again, the human guy sitting in the front seat.

"Two minutes!" her mother repeats.

Charlie walks over to the car. "I guess we have to go for a drive," she says. "You up for it?"

The guy looks down at the car's dashboard, then up at her. He looks apprehensive.

"How about I drive?" she suggests, and he looks dubious but moves to the passenger seat when she shoos him over, after opening the garage door.

Charlie drives them away from the house, but has no idea where to actually _go_. The guy- also Bumblebee, she guesses?- clearly doesn't have a house to go to, and it's not like she can afford to put him up in a hotel or anything.

"So," she says, glancing across the seats to look at him. He's poking at his arms, seemingly perplexed by his own body. "I'm guessing you're not normally a human?"

He looks up at her, and shakes his head firmly.

"Do you have any idea why you're one now?" she asks, and he shakes his head again.

"Okay," she says. "Well, I don't know what to do."

He tilts his head as he looks at her, eyes wide. He's kind of cute, she thinks, and then shakes her head. _So_ not the time.

"I can't bring you home or my Mom will flip," Charlie explains. "But I told her the car was mine, so I can't _not_ have it, either."

She sighs, and finds herself turning down the familiar street where her uncle's salvage yard lays. "Hey," she says, an idea occurring to her, "Maybe you can camp out here for the night? Uncle Hank won't mind."

Bumblebee looks out the window at the fence of the yard, and shudders. Right, she thinks, he was sitting in that yard as a car for probably a few months already- long enough for her to have to deal with a hive of bees in his wheels, anyway. It's probably not his favorite place in the world.

"Or not," she says, and lets the car idle in the empty street, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel as she thinks.

Would her Mom turn away Bumblebee if she said he didn't have a place to stay? Probably not, she thinks, but her Mom would also only let him camp out for a day or two, max, before insisting she find him a more permanent place.

Maybe he can curl up in the car and sleep in the garage? Charlie looks across at him. His clothes look pretty ratty, honestly, and there's a thick, ugly scar across his neck; she grimaces as she imagines how he got it, whether it's the reason he can understand her but not talk back. She doesn't really want to force him to hide in the garage when he's clearly already not been having a very good time of things.

"Okay," she says, and puts her foot back on the pedal. "New plan."

The guy in the house next door to hers is the same one she's noticed noticing her at work, and he seems like an awkward geek, but the harmless sort. Charlie knocks on his door, relieved when he opens it himself, rather than his parents.

"Hi!" he says, voice going a little high, then artificially deep when he repeats himself; "Hello."

"Hi," Charlie replies. "This is weird, but can I ask you for a favor?"

"Yes, yeah, absolutely," he says.

She smiles. "It's a long story, but this-" she points to Bumblebee, sitting in the car- "is my friend, uh, Bee. And Bee needs a place to stay for a few days."

Her neighbor opens his mouth, looking between her and the car. "You want him to stay with me?" he asks dubiously.

"Yes," Charlie says firmly. "He's had it rough, you know? And I'd let him stay with me but, well, my Mom would flip if I had a guy staying over, even just a friend."

Her neighbor looks like he's going to say something, but then deflates. "Sure. Yeah, he can stay on the couch, I guess. Let me just ask my folks."

"Great," she says, and smiles brightly at him.

"I'm Memo, by the way," he says.

"Memo," Charlie repeats. "I'm Charlie."

"Yeah I, uh, know," he says, and then winces. "So I'll just go ask my parents, be right back."

She nods, and walks back to the car where Bumblebee is waiting. "Are you going to be okay with him for the night?" she asks. "We can look for other places tomorrow, if we need to, but this is our best shot tonight."

Bee looks apprehensive, fingers playing with the frayed hem of his shirt, but he nods.

"Great," Charlie says, relieved. Memo soon reappears, and says that his parents aren't too happy, but 'Bee' can stay the night.

"Does he have any stuff?" Memo asks, looking Bumblebee over curiously.

"Not really," she says, "Like I said, he's had it rough."

"Alright, well," Memo says, and smiles at Bee. "Hey man, I'm Memo. You wanna come in?"

Bumblebee looks reluctant to leave the car- not that Charlie can blame him, when she considers that it kind of _is_ him- but he does, and after she gives a quick explanation about his not speaking, he follows Memo into the house.

Charlie watches the closed door for a few seconds longer than she needs to before going back to the car and driving back across the street to her own house.

It really does not feel real, she thinks as she surveys the car sitting in the garage. Maybe she's lost it and that guy was just some homeless kid who snuck into the car when she wasn't looking- but then what was with the giant robot?

No, Charlie thinks to herself as she shuts off the lights after locking up, she hasn't imagined things. Her car really is a giant robot, and also somehow a human guy at the same time.

Her mother is sitting up in the living room when she passes through.

"You were gone a while," her mother says, a knowing look in her eye.

"Well, Bee lives on the other side of town," Charlie fibs.

"I don't mind that you're dating," her mother says, pointedly closing the book she had resting in her lap. "But if you're bringing them back here, I want to at least know about it, Hon."

"I am not dating him!" Charlie says, feeling her face heat up even though she's telling the truth.

Her Mom looks unimpressed. "Tell me things, okay? I'm your mother."

"There's nothing to tell," Charlie says. "He's a friend, I gave him a ride in my new car, end of story."

Her mother sighs.

"I'm really tired now so I'm going to bed, okay? Goodnight!" Charlie says, practically running back to her room.

"Goodnight!" her Mom calls back. "Love you!"

Charlie shuts the door of her room and just stands there, too hyped up to even think about sleeping. Should she have given Bumblebee- or, well, Memo- her phone number, in case something happens? Too late now, unless she wants to annoy his family by marching back over.

She breathes deeply, trying to center herself. It's fine, she tells herself. The car she fixed up at the junkyard turned out to be some sort of shape-shifting robot thing, with a bonus disappearing human body thrown in for good measure. Sort of thing that happens every day.

She looks over at the photograph of her father, and sighs. "Dad, you would not _believe_ the day I've had."


End file.
